News That Stays News

Mirador July 1, 2013

If you walk east from the station along the road and take the first marked trail on the right, you end up at the Mirador la Roca, the rock lookout. It’s a craggy outcropping at the top of a small ridge, and the elements only seem to sharpen its edges, not weather them.

Even though it’s only about 300 feet above the station, the mirador is an excellent place to get the lay of the land. The station at Palo Verde lies between two ridges that tower over the marsh like mountains but are probably, in terms of feet and meters, very large hills. The station is at the foot of one ridge, while the other is separated from us by miles of marsh, river, and farmland. The dirt-and-gravel road runs along the base of our ridge from east to west, gradually curving south from the ridge into the wetland and ending at the river. This topography makes it almost impossible to be lost, at least in the absolute sense of not knowing how to get back to the station.

Not only can you see everything from the mirador, you can hear it as well. The forest here is noisy, filled with raucous bird calls and the roars of howler monkeys, but the dampening effect of trees and leaves limits what you can hear on the ground. Up on the mirador, it seems like you can hear the entire park calling at once, with the addition of the bird and frogs in the marsh. Once I thought I heard a crocodile or caiman bellowing, but it might have been something else.